Rain Falling Into His Eyes
by Sorceress Fantasia
Summary: In the past, Pharaoh Atemu loved both his queen and concubine deeply. In the present, Yami loves both his friend and aibou just as deeply. But he can only choose one of them. YYA, YYY


Title: Rain Falling Into His Eyes

Author: Sorceress Fantasia

Pairings: YY/A, YY/Y

Warnings: Romance, sap, light angst, AU

Archive: Finally Fantasia (my homepage)

Disclaimer: Dreams are good, but I'll have to be a realist in this case and say that no, I do not own Yu Gi Oh or any of its characters. I do own this fic though.

Intro: In the past, Pharaoh Atemu loved both his queen and concubine deeply. In the present, Yami loves both his friend and aibou just as deeply. But he can only choose one of them.

Note: This fic is kind of like a reincarnation fic, with Atemu's past life as a pharaoh and his present life as Yami Yugi woven together. It's the first time I've tried to write something like this, so umm… not sure if it will work. And I do admit: I'm taking a lot of artistic license here, giving Yami a body right from the beginning. And no, I'm not bashing Anzu.

_

* * *

__He had met and fallen in love with Heba (1) first._

_He remembered how it had been._

_He had escaped from the palace, sick of the duties his father imposed on him, sick of his mother constantly trying to push the ladies of the court towards him and tired of his life in general, when he had met a group of bandits and gotten robbed. After the few precious stones and jewelry were taken from him, he was left for dead in the hot desert sand as the bandits rode off, laughing gaily at their catch._

_When he woke up, he woke up to the most beautiful amethyst eyes and the most caring smile he had ever seen._

_That was Heba, the young boy who had dragged him back to his village and carefully nursed him back to health._

_It was that moment when he opened his eyes to Heba's that Prince Atemu fell in love for the first time._

* * *

How long he had been kept captive here, he had no idea, only that it had been very, very long. It was long enough for him to forget why he was a prisoner or even anything about his life before the incarceration. 

He had tried remembering, but every time he did, his head would hurt so much. It was like someone, anyone, was cleaving his head apart with a blunt weapon. He gave up after the fifth attempt.

The days passed as though they were nights, for there was no light to tell him the time. Spring was the same as autumn, as was summer to winter. The floors were his ceiling, and the ceiling was his floor. There was no difference in anything in his world.

Even time had ceased to exist for him.

Still, he waited. But he had no idea what he was waiting for. Was he waiting to get out of where he was? But what if he was already 'out'? What was the difference between 'in' and 'out' anyway?

Then one day, the shadows holding him seemed to loosen a little and he got his first taste of warmth in a long time. He thought this was what he had been waiting for.

But it wasn't to come all at once. No, he had to wait for what he waited.

Time passed, and he finally got an idea of what time was again. Vaguely, he counted the days. A little more than seven years had passed since he found warmth again, and he knew he only had to wait for a bit more.

On the eighth year, the shadows loosened their hold on him completely as the warmth penetrated the darkness and brought light into his world. It was that day that he remembered what he had been waiting for all along.

Freedom.

He took a deep breath, and his lungs rejoiced at the taste of vanilla, something he wasn't sure if he had ever smelt before but knew now as freedom. Even the air felt different. As the glaring light dimmed down, he opened his eyes for the first time since his liberation. There, seated on the floor before him and rubbing furiously at his eyes was a young boy who looked not a day older than twelve. The boy's hair was interesting, to say the least: golden bangs as bright as the sun, and jet-black hair that were tinged with a bit of crimson. It would have looked strange on anyone else, but the boy looked oddly cute like that.

And then, the boy looked up, and he felt his breath leaving him suddenly.

He could almost see himself in those sweet amethysts that were so pure; so pure he almost felt ashamed to stand in the boy's presence. Did mortals have eyes so beautiful a goddess would be jealous of? Or was this boy an angel himself? And those lips! So pink they were, and so… delectable.

The other boy was surprised to see someone in his bedroom.

"Who are you?"

He was about to answer when he realized that in the years of his imprisonment, he had forgotten his own name. The word was on his tongue, but it refused to leave his mouth. And his mind had long lost the ability to capture that forgotten word.

"I… I do not know."

The boy cocked his head.

"Not know? How could you not know your own name?"

That was another question he could not answer, and he told the boy so.

"Where did you come from? Why are you here?"

He shook his head silently.

"You must have come from the puzzle, then. Because it gave off this strange light when I completed it, and you appeared right after the light went away. Are you a spirit?"

He shook his head again.

And the other boy smiled warmly, and he felt his cheeks heating up.

"I guess you've been inside for too long, so you've forgotten everything. It's okay; you'll probably remember everything one day. But before that day comes, will you be my friend?"

"Your friend?"

The boy looked sheepish.

"I… I've never had real friends before, so… I wished on the puzzle that I would find friends, and you appeared. Maybe… maybe you're the answer to my wish."

"Aa," he replied, his heart softening at the silent plea. "I'll be your friend and more, if you'd let me. What is your name, little one?"

"Yugi!" The other boy smiled widely, his eyes lighting up with a twinkle of excitement.

Game? The little one was named 'game'? It was interesting, he decided.

"What do you want me to call you? You must have a name so I can call you!"

He searched his head for any names, but it turned up blank. But he did remember something from his days spent in the shadows.

"Yugi, what's 'darkness' in your language? I shall go by that."

"You want to call yourself 'Yami'?"

"Yami?" he tried, rolling it off his tongue. He liked it. "Yami it shall be then."

"Okay!" Yugi answered, giving the now christened Yami a wide smile.

Yami felt his heart throb and his cheeks flare up again. It was this moment that Yami knew this was the person he wanted to protect all his life.

_

* * *

While the palace was in an uproar and utter chaos over the disappearance of the crown prince, Atemu learnt to rear sheep, learnt to cook simple meals, and learnt how to read the stars. All the while, Heba was by his side, teaching him patiently. _

_While the palace guards were dispatched to every corner of the kingdom in search of the pharaoh's son, Atemu lay in bed with Heba, tenderly caressing his body and pressing little kisses to his lips. Heba, in return, smiled gently as he allowed himself to be pushed onto their bed._

_While the people were whispering amongst themselves that the crown prince had been abducted by a notorious gang of robbers and possibly murdered, Atemu wrapped the blanket tighter around Heba, whispering sweet nothings into his ears, telling him that the rare storm would soon pass and there was no need to be afraid. Heba snuggled closer, taking comfort in his lover's warm embrace._

_While the high priests were praying to the gods for a hint of where their prince were, Atemu promised Heba to love him forever, and handed him a lotus, the flower of love, that he had found. Heba took the lotus gratefully, and gave Atemu his own promise of love._

* * *

"Mou… it's raining again!" Yugi complained as he heard the unmistakable sound of rain splattering against his window, his voice sounding almost whiny. If it had been anyone else, like those girls in school, Yami would have thought it irritating, but it was Yugi's voice, and no voice was better than his. 

He wrapped his arms around his aibou's little waist, pulling him against his broad chest. Yugi did not even resist.

"If you want a rainbow, you've got to put up with at least a little bit of rain, little one."

"I know, I know… It's just…" he sighed. "I just don't like rain. It confused me. Was it tears on my face, or was it just the rain?"

Yami knew what he was talking about. That car crash. It was raining during the funeral. Yugi's parents. The same ones who seemed to cared very little for their only son, but they were still his parents. And it hurt to know they had died on their way to visit him for the first time in years.

Carefully, Yami coaxed Yugi back into their game of Duel Monsters. Yugi had been playing the game for some time already and was already a pretty strong opponent, but in Yami's opinion, he still had some room for improvement. That was why Yami had chosen to help Yugi build up his experience as a way of saying thanks after Yugi taught him how to make pancakes. It was a habit of theirs, to teach each other new things. Like when Yugi had taught him how to read Japanese, he had taught Yugi how to be more confident of himself. When Yugi had taught him how to use the television, he returned that favour by teaching Yugi how to stand up for himself. Together, through their learning and teaching, they learnt how to live life to the fullest, making friends and building up a reputation of the 'King of Games'.

And together, they also learned something else.

Yami summoned his trusted Black Magician and easily bypassed Yugi's trap card to destroy his Silent Swordsman.

"That's another 500 of your life points deducted, aibou. And for that, I think I deserve a little something," he said, leering at the blush that had blossomed on Yugi's face.

Still, the blush did not stop Yugi from leaning in to plant a soft kiss on Yami's left cheek.

"That's all?" Yami asked, pointing to his other cheek, smirking when he got a kiss there too.

By the time the game ended, which Yugi lost by a small margin, they had spent more time kissing than playing. It was also then that the rain intensified and a clap of thunder roared in the distance, causing the window panes to shudder violently.

Yugi yelped and ducked for his bed.

That was the best invitation Yami ever saw, and he took it up quite eagerly, jumping in after his aibou. Carefully, he gathered Yugi into his arms and started to kiss his fears away.

"Don't be afraid, aibou…" he said breathily, the words whispering across Yugi's body. "I'm with you… Always with you…"

Slowly, Yugi's body relaxed and his hands crawled up Yami's back and begun their maddening caress down his spine. His mouth opened, luring Yami's kiss to deepen. He started to moan, and Yami shuddered in pleasure.

"Yugi… I love you."

Yugi could not find his voice to answer as Yami's lips descended upon his neck and he felt his shirt sliding off his shoulders. He wove his hands into Yami's hair and pulled him closer, moaning his answer.

_

* * *

Finally, the rest of the world intruded upon their private heaven, and the guards came to escort Prince Atemu home. When Heba found out about his lover's true identity, he had tried to extinguish all his hopes. He had tried to convince himself to forget about Atemu. Now that he knew Atemu was the crown prince, he also knew that there was no way his lover would be able to stay with him. Heba had long heard about tales of the beautiful women in the palace's harem, and how the crown prince had captured the hearts of numerous high-born ladies. _

_But to his surprise, Atemu refused to leave his lover behind and took Heba back to the palace with him, making him his concubine._

* * *

"So you were a pharaoh of Egypt?" Yugi asked, after they came home from the museum. The person in the stone tablet looked too much like Yami to be a mere coincidence. 

"Looks that way. But it could have been another person with the same hairstyle."

"Somehow, I doubt that… Besides, that person had the Millennium Puzzle, right? It has to be you."

"I guess…"

Yugi cocked his head in confusion.

"You don't look happy."

It wasn't a question.

"It's just…" Yami sighed. "It's just that I felt so close to my memories when I saw that stone tablet, but it's still so elusive. Will I ever remember anything?"

Yugi hugged Yami's waist, looking up into his lover's eyes.

"Yami… maybe my memories aren't as precious as yours, or maybe they aren't as important as yours, but… I'll give you my memories. I'll give you all of them. That way, even if you never recover your memories, you'll still have some to call your own."

Yami smiled, pulling Yugi in for a short, chaste kiss.

"Silly aibou, no one's memories are more precious or more important than another person's. They're all equally precious and important. And I already have memories to call my own. You created those memories with me, remember? Every kiss we've shared, every time we touched, and every moment we spent together… those are /our/ memories. And I'll always remember them," he ended with another kiss.

"But if I were a pharaoh still, I suppose I would have been able to create memories that are quite… different," he said with a smirk. "Like I could passed down a law that says you are not allowed to wear too much clothes. Only the bare minimum, just so you don't catch a cold."

"Oh?" Yugi raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't that make me sound like some slave? I even have to obey you when it comes to the clothes I wear?"

"Nope, not slave. Concubine. Concubine Yugi… that does have a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

Yugi pouted.

"Can't I be the queen? Or if you're so fussy over the gender thing, consort. I'm supposed to be your only one!" he whined, sticking out his tongue.

"Well, pharaohs are supposed to get many wives. And there's still the harem…"

"Yami!"

"Alright, alright. You /are/ my only one. I just think Concubine Yugi sounds better than Queen Yugi or Consort Yugi."

"You would!"

Any further arguments were stopped by Yami's roaming hands and lips.

_

* * *

Years later, when Atemu became the pharaoh after his father's death, the high priests advised him to marry and quickly produce an heir to solidify his power on the throne. As much as he loved Heba, Atemu knew they were right; he was a young king, and the neighbouring kingdoms were probably already hungering for a piece of his vast land. He had to stabilize his powers with a queen of high standing, something Heba was not. After promising Heba that he would return to him as soon as his queen gave him an heir, Atemu called his potential wives to court. _

_Fiery, high-spirited Tea caught his eye, and in a grand ceremony, they were wedded and she became the queen of Kemet._

_That night, Atemu fell in love again, this time with his queen._

_A child soon followed, and the kingdom cheered and celebrated his arrival. Excited over his heir's birth, Atemu found himself spending more and more time with Tea and their son. Days were spent grooming his son to be his heir, and nights were spent in bed with his wife._

_Heba lay alone in his room, crying silent tears for Atemu's broken promise._

* * *

"Yami! Do you think this outfit would look good on me?" 

He gave it a quick once-over, and decided that the clothes did look good. He particularly liked the short mini-skirt that was made of leather, knowing that it would show much of the girl's long legs.

"You should try it on, Anzu. I like it."

She gave an excited nod and went into the fitting room.

Yami sighed, muttering how much girls loved to shop and how they expected their poor boyfriends to tag along. Boyfriend. He sighed again, remembering how Yugi had looked at him when he came home after a 3-month student exchange program to America.

It was amazing how much things could change in 3 months.

He had wanted to travel to America with his aibou, unwilling to leave him alone for even a moment. When jii-chan reminded him that he had no room and board, not to mention any identification documents, Yami tried to persuade Yugi into staying. But the young one had been too excited at the prospect of being an exchange student that he insisted on going. In the end, Yami could only kiss his lover goodbye at the airport and wait patiently for the months to pass.

It was just a week after Yugi left that Anzu broke up with her boyfriend, spending days crying buckets over how he had cheated on her. Jonouchi and Honda cajoled Yami into the job of cheering her up since they knew Anzu liked him the best out of all of them, which lead to him taking her out frequently for a good movie or a good shopping spree, which she enjoyed the most.

Woman on the rebound, Yami thought, were the most vulnerable, and it wasn't surprising to find Anzu confessing her feelings to him after only a month.

But Yami was surprised when he found himself returning those feelings, and in a moment of weakness, he gave into those feelings and fell in love again, this time with Anzu. Carrying on behind the backs of all their friends, they continued going out, only that it wasn't to cheer Anzu up anymore.

On the other hand, Yami struggled with ways to break the news to Yugi. But every time Yugi told him how much he love and missed him in his letters, Yami could not bring himself to write the words that would break the little one's heart.

"Yami? What do you think?"

Those words broke Yami out of his self-induced trance, and he looked up to see Anzu out of the changing room, all decked out in the new clothes she had picked out earlier. She looked as good as he had imagined.

"Looks good. But maybe you should get another top to go with the skirt. This one's too bright. Get something to tone down the colours, you know?" he suggested.

She considered that for a moment.

"Maybe. I'll try that dull yellow top then," she answered, closing the door again.

But in Yami's eyes, the door that closed was the door to the room he had shared with his lover. Yugi had closed the door behind him quietly, his expression unreadable apart from the hurt that was so evident. There had been no angry words, no hateful stares, no tears. Just an almost inaudible 'click' of the door behind him.

But that soft 'click' held more finality than any words, any stares, or any tears could ever achieve.

"Yugi, I still love you. But I love Anzu too. I…" he had said, which he knew was the truth. He loved them both just as deeply. He wanted them both just as much.

Yugi had lowered his head for the longest while, before leaving the room with a single sentence.

"_Is that so?"_

That night, Yami moved out of their shared room, and he was sure, out of Yugi's heart as well.

"Yami?"

She was talking to him again, gently nudging him out of his thoughts.

"I…" she looked ready to apologize again, for she knew what he was thinking. It was something that had plagued their relationship from the moment it started. And it was also something that had destroyed her friendship with her childhood friend, and she regretted her moment of vulnerability. But she didn't want to give up Yami. She didn't want to lose him.

"I…"

Yami shook his head.

"Don't."

As much as she knew it was wrong, she kept quiet.

_

* * *

One night, it rained. _

_Atemu was roused from his sleep by the rumbling thunders and flashing lightning, and suddenly, he remembered. Rain was rare in Kemet, not to mention storms, and the last time it had rained this heavily… _

_It was as though something clicked in his mind, and he quickly threw off his covers, ignored Tea's sleepy questions, and pulled on his clothes. While the guards by his door were still trying to recover from their shock at seeing the pharaoh burst out of his room in the middle of the night, Atemu was already flying down the corridors to a room where he had once been familiar with._

* * *

Yami looked out of the window of the café, suppressing his worry as the rain lashed out in all its fury. The beads of water had increased in intensity in the last hour, as did the howling winds, and there was no doubt that the storm would continue for quite a while. 

Outside, the streets were nearly void of all existence. Except for a few unfortunate souls who were caught in the rain and still battling with their umbrellas, everyone were in their houses, huddling together for warmth and comfort. Vaguely, he wondered how Yugi was dealing with it. His aibou disliked heavy rain, and he was all alone at home, now that jii-chan had gone on a vacation.

As Yami continued to gaze outside, his image in the smooth glass window changed. In place of his blood-red eyes were eyes of the purest amethyst, and instead of his hard frown was a soft smile.

Yugi.

His best friend. His… aibou.

But it did not sound convincing at all.

Yugi was more than just that.

"Yami?"

The soft spoken question broke him out of his trance, and Yami turned back to the girl across the table. Anzu. Right… he was dating Anzu. In fact, they were on a date right now. He should not keep thinking about someone else, even if that person was Yugi. But as Yami looked at Anzu, he could not shake off the image of those clear amethyst orbs superimposed over Anzu's blue eyes.

"Yami? Are you alright?"

He blinked again.

"Ah, I'm fine. Just… a little… testy because of the rain."

Anzu cocked her head, a small frown appearing on her face.

"But why? I thought you like rain. The last time you even played in the rain with the children in the playground."

Indeed, Yami did like rain a lot. It was beautiful; the way the water poured down from the heavens and caressed his body as they flowed down fascinated him. Vaguely, he wondered if it was because rain was always rare in Egypt, and every time it rained was like a gift from the gods. He could picture that, could picture himself standing in the rain and watch as the divine blessing from the skies quenched the thirst of the crops and cooled the black sands of Kemet.

But Yugi disliked rain, especially when it got heavy. He said it was like the sky was crying for something lost, weeping for something so precious it could never be replaced. His parents had died when their car skidded down a mountain path during a heavy shower.

"Yami?" Anzu tried again.

"I don't know…" he answered truthfully, looking down at his cup of steaming black coffee. "I just feel…"

_Empty._

Then, the first flash of lightning streaked across the horizon, lighting up the entire sky. A rumble of the storm hollered in the distance, crashing down with unrelenting anger as though Osiris the Sky Dragon was roaring. The children in the café screamed, and one of the mothers tried to calm her bawling baby down.

Yet, Yami heard none of that. He could only hear Yugi's soft sobs and whimpers as he tried to hide under his covers and get away from the storm. Yami knocked over his chair in his haste to get up.

Before Anzu could stop him, he was already sprinting down the streets like a cyclone, tearing anything that stood in his way. The rain slapped his face relentlessly, pounded on his flesh angrily as though telling him to turn back to the warm and dry café, but he would have none of that.

Turning round a corner, his shoes lost their grip and he fell in a flail of arms and legs. It hurt, his body told him, but Yami pushed himself off and carried on, because his mind knew what hurt more.

Back in the café, Anzu only ordered another cup of black coffee. She took a sip when it came. There was no sugar in it, but it wasn't as bitter as she had thought. It was bearable, and she knew she would eventually get used to the taste. One day -she smiled in resignation- she might even learn to enjoy her black, bitter coffee.

_

* * *

But when Atemu pushed open the door, he was surprised at how he almost couldn't recognize it anymore. The once beautiful furniture was covered with a layer of dust, and the corners of the room were filled with cobwebs that lay forgotten even by spiders themselves. There was a vase on the table, one that held only the stem of a lotus long dead and gone. And even the stem had turned brown and dry. Only the bed was still clean, but there was none of the warmth Atemu remembered. _

_The room looked forgotten and dead._

_Slowly, ignoring the pain in his heart at breaking his promise, Atemu walked towards the balcony, where the once white curtains were lashing angrily from the rain outside. The wind howled in agony, and he could hardly hear the quiet sobs. But a flash of lightning streaked across the sky and lit up the room and the silhouette of the tiny child sobbing by himself near the balcony door._

_He had been soaked to the skin, and so absorbed in his pain that he did not notice the pharaoh coming towards him. It was only when he felt the thin cloak wrapped around his body that he looked up for the first time, anguish clearly shown in his amethyst eyes. _

_Atemu could not convince himself the water on Heba's face was from the rain._

* * *

How long had it been since he last stepped into Yugi's room? He honestly could not remember. 

But he was going to change that now.

Slowly, Yami turned the knob and pushed. The door creaked open, but the sound was lost in the torrent pouring outside. He took the time to look around the room, surprised to find that nothing had changed since he moved out. It was still neat, still cozy and the vanilla scent of Yugi's shampoo still permeated every inch of the room. Even some of his things, the things he had neglected to take with him when he had moved out in hopes of winning Yugi back, were still where he had left them.

The red roses, the first bouquet Yugi had ever received from anyone, had long wilted and some petals were already missing, but it was still in the vase that Yami gave him.

The Black Magician plush toy, something he had gotten his lover with just one coin from an UFO machine, was still holding on to his steadfast staff. Its purple robes had faded in colour, but it was still clean.

And the hand-drawn movie poster that Yami had done for Yugi when they could not get a real one was also still stuck in that odd angle on the wall. The drawing was a little lopsided, and some of the colours were a different from the original, but it was still beautiful.

Things still looked the same.

But Yugi was no longer a smiling presence that lit up the room.

Instead, he was a mess huddled under the covers of his bed that did nothing to protect him. It was too small to keep him warm, too thin to block out the noise, and too external to the pain bottled inside. Yet, he held on to the blanket tightly like it was his lifeline.

When another clap of thunder shook the windows, his grip tightened until his knuckles were white and his nails had dug into his flesh. Blood flowed out of the stinging crescent wounds.

Yami willed himself to move faster, but the few steps from the door to the bed seemed to take a million years.

Hesitantly, he reached out to take Yugi's hands.

When their hands came into contact, Yugi gasped, but had no other reaction. Gingerly, Yami loosened his grip on the blanket and as though lifting a bride's wedding veil, he lifted the blue cloth that had covered Yugi's head. But underneath the veil was no happy bride, no blushing lady who looked up at her groom through the edges of the veil; there was only Yugi, whose cheeks were dry, but whose eyes were filled with unshed tears that threatened to fall.

"Yugi…" Yami started, cupping his lover's cherubic face and rubbing away the tears only he could see. "Yugi, I…"

_

* * *

As he tried to apologize and make up for his long absence, Heba could do nothing but sit there and let himself be coddled and pulled away from the rain. Atemu kissed his lips that were almost blue, shed their wet clothes and pulled him into bed, wrapping the blanket around them tightly. _

_When Atemu wasn't satisfied and was about to order the servants to fetch some hot water immediately, he felt Heba tugging lightly on his arm._

_Heba was crying again, but the pain in his eyes was gone. He opened his mouth and spoke for the first time in a long while._

* * *

"You came back." 

Yugi was crying openly now, his pearl-like tears cascading down his cheeks with no signs of stopping. His voice was hoarse and soft, and it trembled.

"You came back," he repeated, a little louder now.

_

* * *

That quiet statement was soft, almost inaudible in the terrible storm raging outside, but Atemu thought it was the loudest thing he had ever heard. It echoed within his mind, resonated within his heart, and reverberated within his soul. It started as a small ripple in the core of his being, only to end up larger than a tidal wave that engulfed him whole. _

_Shakily, Atemu reached out for Heba again and wrapped his arms around his pale body. As he willed his tears to go away, Atemu pleaded for the first time in his life: Tea was his heart, but Heba was his life. In his pursuit of a complete heart, he had forgotten that his life was more than just that. His life was… Heba._

_Atemu tightened his hold on his lover and begged for his love again, if Heba would give him his heart one more time. _

* * *

"Yeah… I came back," Yami whispered, his voice strangled and tight. He gathered Yugi into his arms, letting his chin rest on Yugi's head and held him close. Yugi hugged him back just as tightly, afraid to let go. They were both crying. 

"I came back…" he repeated firmly. "And I'm not leaving. Not again. Never again."

"But Anzu…"

"I love her," Yami said solemnly, and Yugi looked away. But a finger lifted his head and their eyes met again.

"But I love you more. And I've made my choice, the moment I left her and ran back to you."

Neither said anything more; they just held onto the other and continued to shed the tears that they had both kept bottled inside them all through the months.

The rain outside continued, but the heavier it rained, the rainbow that it promised would be more beautiful. And if the rainbow did not come, they would make it appear.

* * *

The roses and lotuses had long wilted, but what they embodied was immortal. 

The Black Magician plush toy was old, but his loyalty and protection could withstand anything.

The movie poster was not authentic, but the love story it told of an ancient king and his concubine was truer than any diamond in the world.

And the one sentence on the poster that Yami had written in bright yellow instead of the subdued black stuck out: Even though the memories have faded, the love will always remain.

* * *

"_I can't give you what you already have," Heba answered. "My heart… it's always been yours."_

_Atemu gave him a bittersweet smile, and leaned in to kiss him again._

owari-

(1) Heba: I read somewhere that this is Ancient Egyptian for 'game', so I made it Yugi's previous life's name. Thought it would be fitting.

A/N: I know some of you probably hate Anzu after reading this, but well… personally, I think that Yami has just as much to blame. And there's nothing wrong or right about what the two of them did; it's a matter of perspective. Of course, I would be seriously pissed off if I were Yugi, but erm… Well, I just want to say that I'm not bashing Anzu here. Maybe it's just a way of resolving the love triangle between the three of them.


End file.
